Personal growth: Do we have the power to change our moods? May 13, 2018

Psychotherapist Richard Carlson tells us that our moods, particularly the two opposites of low moods and high moods, can have huge effect on our intellectual approach to problem solving, but aside from waiting for a low mood to go away, is there a way to avoid the negative effects of a low mood, or alternatively get into a better mood?

Author Seth Godin, in a blog post titled The Places You Go, writes that we sometimes bring on low or positive moods by choice:

“There’s a metaphorical room I can go to where I’m likely to experience flow—a sense of being in the moment and getting an enormous amount done. Down the hall is the room where there’s a lot of anxiety about something I can’t change. I can visit that room if I choose, but I don’t. And yes, it’s a choice.”

One of the key points here is that Godin is talking about how anxiety can result from constantly revisiting and fretting about “something I can’t change.”

He further suggests that, “Anxiety, flow, joy, fear, exhaustion, connection, contemplation, emotional labor… each one can be visited at will if we choose. Sometimes by entering a real room, but more often in metaphor…”

The post he wrote is more involved and complex than what I have written in this short article, so here is the link if you would like to read it in more detail: